He’s been to every earlier TEDxCanberra, but this year, Nick Ellis (you might know him as @electric589 on Twitter) used the iPad app, Paper, to illustrate his response to many of this years’ presenters.

We liked them so much that we thought we’d ask Nick if we could post them here. Thankfully, he said yes.

In Nick’s own words, “… largely the reason I didn’t draw something for absolutely every talk: [was] some topics don’t lend themselves to visual representation (or, I just couldn’t find a visual I thought fitted the talk well enough).

The sketches were reportage, of a sort, and in some cases editorial.

Sally Richards talk on her son Jackson was one that I really struggled with, and, in retrospect am glad I didn’t try, because I don’t think I could have been fair to it.

Thank you to all the speakers, sponsors and the team who put the day together, I had an incredible time in and out of the sessions.

Thanks guys, it was great.”

I started drawing this before Daniel finished his example of how few people actually remembered which way the Queen faces on the back of the dollar coin. It’s not how a dollar coin looks, which I not only didn’t I remember that the Queen faced right, I was convinced she faced left.

The biggest ship I’ve ever been on is a Sydney ferry, which tended not to roll that much. Karen’s description and photo of the ship listing struck me. That angle!

What people expect happens to a laser when it is restricted by a gate, and what actually happens. A really easy diagram that gets the idea across well.

I thought it was fitting that in a talk about uncertainty the experiment jammed. Not so much a sign from the universe as a coincidence that resonated.

Australian currency is (or in the case of the two cent coins, was) really visually distinctive. I could show $100/34 cents without much more detail than shape, relative size and colour.
If I did this sketch again, I would use Stephen’s visual of a bag of one hundred dollar coins, I think it’s much more striking.

The IV drip (or as close as I could make out from up in the gallery) that keeps Hannah alive through daily antibiotic doses. I thought this would be a striking illustration (literally and figuratively) of the difficulties Hannah faces but doesn’t seem daunted by. I had no idea how much it would pale in comparison.

The wheelchair Hannah left as she walked off stage. Not much to say, other than I couldn’t draw fast enough, but while it might not technically or specifically match Hannah’s chair, it hopefully gets across her point.
Also – I just recorded this. Any poetry or aesthetic is Hannah’s.

This is probably my least favourite of the sketches as it doesn’t feel like it captures much more than a tiny part of the surface of what Vic was saying. But here it is, a cartoon shark avoiding a cartoon magnet.

Again, the idea is completely the speaker’s, I just made a draft of how a ‘Please consider the gender you haven’t been’ might look. I like subtle subversions like this.

If someone sets you up with the possibility of drawing a dinosaur, you take it. Seems only fair that they get to ride the dinosaur. Also, I want to thank Upulie for explaining my almost unbearable fear of birds.

Bliss were first on after a break, so I started drawing them standing almost as a warm-up. Then I realised I needed to finish drawing them before they stopped speaking because there would be no way I’d be able to capture them once they started dancing.

The image of the shopping trolley and Greg’s hypothetical question ‘Oh no, what happened to this guy?!’ were hilarious and all too accurate for parts of Canberra. I wanted to draw the trolley even smaller than Greg had shown it, to really drive home the loneliness.

My notes are incomplete and I don’t have the name of the gentleman who talked about flying, but his skydiver’s joke ‘If sitting in a plane is flying then sitting in a boat is swimming,’ cracked me up and I wanted to give it a visual.

This was simple; I like drawing people playing music.

Andrew communicated his idea of relative advantage very effectively with the visual metaphor of his height compared to the TEDx Canberra audience’s height, compared to the height of the Harlem Globetrotters. All I did was draw it.

I didn’t share this drawing on the day, and I’m not entirely sure it should be shared now. Not because it isn’t a good drawing (it could be better) or even that it doesn’t get an idea across (the figure of justice casting a shadow of a crucifix does illustrate a connection between justice before faith) but I’m just not sure it does Peter’s *talk* justice.
There was depth to what Peter was saying that I don’t think is captured here. Nuances that aren’t in this drawing, and so while the drawing’s ok, it’s not right for the talk.

A quick sketch of the stage and parts of the Brass Knuckle Brass Band playing before the first talk.